I opened my eyes. I was lying down, staring up at the concrete ceiling. My eyes felt puffy, and my head hurt; the kind of ache you got from crying too hard. I sat up cautiously but still winced. I blinked and wiped at my eyes before looking around.

Three women stood nearby talking amongst themselves as they glanced the control panel and large screen nearby. A bird’s eye view of New York showed on the screen, with some hot spots dotted around Manhattan. What the? Where was I? Suddenly the memories came back, along with the confusion, and the hurt. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to steady myself. What had I done?

I looked back over at the women, and watched as they talked, their faces serious. Cindy noticed me first and they all turned to me, before quickly making their way over.

“Lucas? You ok?” Cindy asked.

“Yeah. Did I… pass out?” I asked, feeling my face flush.

“Yeah. You scared us for a second” Ghost said.

“Sorry about that”

Emi stepped forward. Our eyes met and she laughed nervously. I looked away.

“Sorry” I mumbled.

“It’s alright. Really. I think anyone would be overwhelmed in your position”

“Yeah, but that’s not…” I trailed off and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Sorry. I was being weird. You didn’t deserve whatever that was”

“You don’t have to apologise” Emi said. I nodded, not trusting myself to respond normally.

“Do you need anything?” Ghost asked.

“No, I’m okay” I said. They all just stood there, looking unsure. I could feel a mixture of pity and concern in their gazes. “Please, don’t let me distract you guys. I’m fine. I’m good to just sit here” I said gesturing back towards the control panel.

“O-ok” Ghost said.

“Feel free to ask us for anything, alright?” Cindy said as they all turned back and made their way over to the screen.

I watched them go then cringed. I’d made everything awkward by having a full-blown breakdown then passing out. I could feel them trying to find the right words not to trigger another crying fit. Emi had seemed nervous just talking to me. I cursed myself silently, for making the situation awkward.

I glanced over at Emi as she spoke to the others, looking away quickly when she spared a glance. What the hell had I been thinking? Of course, it would be weird to just beg for forgiveness like that. She wasn’t Amy. No matter how much I wanted her to be.

I stared at the wall, thinking to myself. This whole situation was messed up. I mean, everything had been going well in my life and then bam! I was just suddenly just in a different universe? Seriously, what the fuck? How did I get home? Could I get home even get home? I shook my head, sighing.

If I couldn't then what? Everything here was different. Even me. I might've been similar but the me here had lived a completely different life. I couldn't just... pick up where he left off. I frowned, retreating into my thoughts.

Things seemed better here though, didn't they? Not that I wanted to stay, but... the me here was better, wasn’t he? He’d done it. What I’d only dreamed of doing. Based off of what Cindy had said, he’d beaten Ricardo without killing him, without destroying the research centre. He'd saved a bunch of lives, and never given him the chance to even touch Emi. Better yet, he was everything I was scared to be. He was an actual superhero.

What did that mean for me then? What did that mean for what I'd done with my life? Was I the worst version of myself? Blessed with incredible power and yet too cowardly to use it. I mean I'd seen the photos, and all this stuff at the HQ. He was part of a big, proper superhero team. He mattered.

I continued to stare at the wall, pain flickering in my expression.

Shit.

I stayed like that for a few minutes before realising how sorry I was feeling for myself. I shook my head again. What the hell was I doing moping around? There was no point just sitting here feeling like shit. I needed to do something. Focus on getting home, somehow.

I looked over to the others and started listening to their conversation.

“Chances are there’s just some villain out there that he got caught up with and he turned off his earpiece because he didn’t want anyone ”

“No. I don’t think it’s a coincidence Lucas 2 came here tonight and we can’t get a hold of him”

“Yeah, I think he’s at the larger hotspot. See there’s two big ones”

“If the machine could barely pick up a hotspot that dropped off an entire person, then I doubt the sizes matter”

“Fair, but they’re both recent. I think something happened today”

“But we’ve got know way to know what”

“Pretty much”

“So that leaves us at square one. Dammit”

“It’s ok Cindy. I’ll send the spy spiders to check out the locations. Keep an eye on things. Till then, you two should probably go back to sleep and I go back out on patrol”

“I’ll patrol with you”

“Cindy, go to sleep. He’ll be ok”

Cindy made a face, and Emi put a hand on her shoulder, comforting her.

“Ok. But I’m sleeping here”

“That’s perfect. What about you Emi?” Gwen asked.

“I wish I could but I’ve got a class at 9 that I really can’t miss”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“That’s fine. Go get some sleep”

Emi nodded and gave both of them quick hugs before she glanced over to me and gave me a small wave. I gave an awkward wave back, and then her wings fluttered and she was gone.

“Remember to wake me if anything happens” Cindy said making her way over to the set of doors.

“I will” Ghost responded,

“Anything. Like, at all”

“Go to bed Cindy”

“Fine. Goodnight”

“Night” Ghost responded. Cindy yawned loudly before looking over at me. She gave me a small awkward wave and I waved back. She made her way over to one of the doors, and slipped inside, closing it behind her.

Ghost turned to me.

“You can go to sleep in Lucas’ room. Unless you want to help with the search?”

“Uh… I think I’ll go to sleep. Sorry. I probably won’t be much use”

She nodded.

“The room on the far end, the one closest to the kitchen is yours. See you in the morning”

“I… thanks” I said, standing. We looked at each other for a moment and I furrowed my brow. She wanted to say something.

“Is everything ok?”

“I-if you don’t mind me asking, back on your world… in the explosion…. did anyone survive?”

I stared at her blankly, caught off guard by the question.

“S-sorry, that was totally inappropriate. I-”

“No, it’s fine. You’re just trying to understand. Uh…yeah. People lived. But... a lot died”

“H-how many?”

“347”

She was silent for a second.

"You go to NYTA, right?"

"Yeah"

“Did you ever go on a school trip to the BRC? A guided tour?”

“I- yeah. How did you-” My eyes widened as everything clicked into place. That’s where I recognised her voice from.

“You’re- you were our tour guide. I recognise your voice” I said, my eyes wide. “You asked about my eyes”

She pulled off her mask, and my eyes widened further. She looked different, ever so slightly, but it was clearly her. I remembered her vividly. Peter’s friend. The one who’d shown up with him and Harry Osborne to the lab. I couldn’t remember her name. Why couldn’t I remember name?

“Your name… Gw- Gwanda?”

“Gwenda. But everyone calls me Gwen”

“Right. Sorry”

“It’s fine. Uh… I- don’t know if you’d know but… my mum and friend worked there- at the BRC too. A-are they… alive on your world?”

“D-do you mean Peter?”

Her expression brightened.

“You know him. How do you know him?” she said.

“He’s Spider-Man”

“Really? That’s… that’s incredible” she said, letting lose a small laugh, her wet eyes sparkling. “I- do you know about my mom?”

“I don’t. Sorry”

“That’s fine”

The weight of her words suddenly hit me.

“Wait. He- Peter died here?”

She nodded, suddenly solemn, before her expression brightened again.

“It’s good to know he’s doing ok somewhere. I’m guessing since you couldn’t remember my name we don’t see all that much of each other. Does he ever mention me?” she chuckled.

I stared blankly at her. Oh right. He’d never explicitly said it in our extremely rare phone calls, but Gwen was dead, wasn’t she? He’d never mentioned her. Gwen frowned, before her expression morphed into confusion and concern.

“Did I…” she trailed off, uncertain how to finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. It was obvious for both us what she meant.

“I think so. Yeah.”

“Oh”

We both went silent.

“I- right. Well, I should probably get to work” she said, laughing awkwardly. I nodded. We glanced at each other awkwardly before I turned and made my way over to the room. Sparing a look back at her, she was already at the control panel, tapping away at the keys. She'd moved on from that pretty quickly. Well exactly how was she supposed to respond to being told her other universe counterpart was dead? I don't know how I'd respond to something like that.

I stopped in front of the door and stared at the spider symbol. It was still so weird to think that I was Spider-Man here. It just… didn’t feel like me.

“Lucas?” Gwen called out. I looked over to her.

“Yeah?”

“Well get you home as soon as possible”

“Thanks"

She nodded and offered and a small smile. I gave a half smile back, then turned to the door and tentatively opened it. Quickly I peered inside. There was a small tinted window at the end but it was too dark to see anything. I flipped on a light switch, and a soft orangish lights illuminated the room. The exact kind of lighting I liked. The room was small, and mostly bare, except for a bed, an open door that led to a bathroom, and few polaroid photos on the wall above the bed and a purple and black Spider-Man costume.

I walked closer, looking over the costume on the bed, a briefly touched the fabric before pulling away. Then I looked up at the photos. They were mostly of random places around the city, with a few of some of the crew I’d seen on the fridge. More recently there were quite a few had pictures of Cindy.

I looked around again, noticing the word hero etched into the ceiling directly above the bed. Weird. I looked down. There was a mini drawer next to the bed. I opened it. Inside a phone sat on top a small purple journal with a picture of the entire spider crew eating and laughing was stuck to the front. I smiled slightly, then grabbed the phone, looking it over.

Would the password be the same? No way, right? I tried it and the phone opened.

“Some habits never die” I said with a small smile. I clicked onto contacts and scrolled through. I frowned. There were only contacts of people from the team and one contact listed HQ. No one else. No one from my family. What? Why?

I should’ve realised something was weird, put two and two together when Cindy had said that thing about me having the apartment for however many years. Was I not in contact with my family here? Why? Because of the Spider-Man stuff? But surely, that wouldn’t be enough to have none of their contacts? Was there a second phone? Maybe, but it hadn’t been back at the apartment. Maybe the other Lucas had it on him? But then why hadn’t he answered any phone calls? I frowned.

Wait, did I even go to school in this world? Cindy had said I’d lived in the apartment since 2025, but they didn’t let sophomores live off campus. Hell, they barely let juniors live off site. Maybe she had the year wrong? But even then, how the hell would I afford the rent? Had I dropped out?

Well, now that I thought about it, it was probably really difficult being Spider-Man and doing well in school. Given my track record from my first term, if I’d carried on being Spider-Man, things would’ve only gotten worse. I’d probably gotten kicked out after far too many absences and lates.

But still, no contact with my family at all? Was I missing something? This didn’t make any sense. Or did it. Was I the one with. I mean, know that I really thought about it, I hadn’t been on the best of terms with my family, three years ago. Moving to New York had been a nightmare for a bunch of different reasons, and no one had exactly been happy with me. What if things had gotten worse? Would I have cut them all off? Would they have cut me off?

I still couldn’t see it.

My frown deepened. Now I wanted to visit them. But would that even be a good idea? They wouldn’t be my family in the same way Emi wasn’t Amy. Still…

If I did visit, I’d visit Big Sis first. Her reaction would be enough to understand what was going on. Wait had she even moved to New York in this world? And if she had, there was no guarantee it'd be the same place as back in my universe. So annoying. I could just visit Auntie’s first instead.

Oh right, Uncle. He might still be alive here. In fact he probably was.

Now I really wanted to visit. But what if I had another breakdown? I sighed and set the phone down. I could think about all this later. I was way too tired now, and my head was starting to hurt again.

I glanced in the bin beside the drawer. There were bloodstained tissues and bandages still in it.

Suddenly a feeling of uneasiness washed over me, and I stepped back, looking around the room. I turned back around and quickly made my way over to the door.

As I reached for the handle I stopped and peered underneath. The words hero were etched into the wood. I traced over them with my fingers then, cracked the door open again. Gwen was gone, and the lights had dimmed. Where had she gone? Probably something to do with this mess.

I flicked the light off behind me and stepped into the now mostly dark main area. The lights beyond the tinted windows more prominent now. I watched them for a few moments, before making my way over to the couch in the mini lounge. I grabbed a blanket from basket next to the couch, then slumped against the cushions of the sofa and stared up at the ceiling.

That’d been weird. Seeing the other me’s stuff like that. I’d been intruding. No way it’d feel right to sleep in his bed.

Plus, it was kind of calming like this. Mostly darkness with really dim ceiling lights, and the hue from outside. I closed my eyes. I could think about stuff in the morning. Hey, maybe this was all a weird dream, and my alarm would wake me up in time for the science talk tomorrow. I smiled slightly as I remembered how excited Yerin had been, then quickly began snoring.